Reaction to a Podcast

I watched a podcast on EdTechTalk where two educators discuss the idea of charisma and how it relates to conveying information. They mention a book called, The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane who determined via her own research that charisma rests on three elements: presence, power, and warmth.  Their discussion is much too brief to get into the book's many details, however they focus on one interesting detail. That is that charisma is essentially how someone encourages others to perceive them. One of the educators say that he conducted an informal experiment where he would go to a public place, such as a coffee shop, and carry out a typical interaction with twist: he would imagine that the clerk is an angel with wings and thus his mannerisms would ever so slightly change and this would be picked up, mainly unconsciously, by the other person in the interaction. Another example is that former President Bill Clinton was often described as charismatic due to his willingness to listen to others, thus convincing them that he feels that they are important. This boosts someone's confidence and really gets them to participate in a conversation, and a President is someone who needs to know many things from his many aides and advisors, thus this behaviora trait served Clinton very well. A third example is that student behavior inside and outside of the classroom affects how students are perceived by their fellow students. And so, a student associated with gossiping is a lot less likely to be attentively listened to by his or her fellow students, if they find the gossip uninteresting or tiresome, perhaps after a while. The student will become associate with bland speaking and his or her charisma will fade.

Charisma in Action

These three short examples, I think, highlight a few important points of teaching. Namely that teacher's should choose their words carefully and respect what their students have to say. This is especially important with adult students who signed up for classes as these are the voluntary students and so can fairly easily sign up for another class with another tutor in contrast to typical primary education students who are simply expected to go to school. Nevertheless, in this latter scenario student morale can be greatly boosted by a charismatic teacher who directs a productive and fun classroom experience. Student apathy goes a long way, from poor student performance to negative school reputation and all the way to a less educated populace, thus I would say that charisma, as described by the two educators in the podcast, is a serious point of consideration for any educator regardless of the level he or she teaches.

The aforementioned podcast can be seen on EdTechTalk's site or on YouTube.

A More Advanced Flipped Lesson with Storybird

Previously, I created a simple flipped lesson with Animoto for beginner or newly intermediate students. Now, here is a more advanced flipped lesson with Storybird. The lesson would go pretty much the same way, however the students for the Storybird lesson should be much higher up: high intermediate or advanced. The use of tense and descriptive vocabulary in the story is such that the students should be at a point where they can make inferences about English languages use (e.g. what function a new word has or guess at its meaning) and can fairly accurately consult sources outside of the classroom or at least other than the teacher (e.g. dictionaries, peers).

On top of the performance indicator for the simple lesson, for this more advanced one, students would also have:

    Performance Indicator - ESL.C.9-12.1.1.14: 

    Students consult print and nonprint resources (e.g., audio/visual media, family) in the

    native language when needed. (full list here)

I used a bit of archaic sounding language in the story, as it takes place during a past age. This will likely require a degree of inference making from the students. I would have the students read the story at home or outside of class as many times as they like with notes being allowed. However, in class there would be a brief objective quiz without the notes. Then the teacher would read the story aloud to the students. A storytelling voice would be great here as the story is narration to an audience, thus the students here take the role of that audience. Teacher would then this fact out to students drawing their attention to the pace of the reading, the use of punctuation, the narrators "breaking the fourth wall" and the like.

Next, for the remainder of class in small groups or 2 or 3 the students would fill in what's missing from the story. Namely, what happened when the hero encountered the monster. The goal would be mix past and present tense as the narrator talks both about the past events and to his or her present audience. This kind of narration also allows for the experimenting with grammar rules as colloquial speech (which may include narration) is not strictly grammatical, but rather expressive. This includes the elements noted above. The goal is the get students to see that grammar, while systematic and with boundaries, is also flexible. Examples from the students' L1 can be used to illustrate the point.

The completed first draft of the story would be due at the end of class. Then the students would go home, revise and rehearse for presentation, that is reading to their classmates, next class session. Each group member's amount of performed text should be more or less the same (e.g. one long story slide by one, but two shorter story slides by another). The rehearsal is meant for planning this part.

Evaluation will be on language accuracy (within bounds) with a submitted final draft of the story. Some consideration will be given to student creativity. A rubric will be shown to the students in advance of the assignment.

A Flipped Lesson with Animoto

In a previous post, I had discussed my thoughts on flipping a classroom and then presented my first flipped lesson plan. That lesson was about learning a useful tool that can be used to flip a classroom. However, here is a lesson that's actually for those whom we'd traditionally call students.

It starts with this brief presentation on Animoto on Christmas-related vocabulary. The flipped lesson would be rather short and can be used for elementary school students in a region where Christmas is reasonably popular so that the largely American/Western version of Christmas in the slide show can be understood and juxtaposed with what the students already know. For example, those who celebrate the holiday in Haiti may find snow a new thing, while many students from Indonesia may only know about Christmas as a distant and exotic celebration. Thus, student body consideration is important here.

The lesson would go pretty simply: the students watch the video for homework and are told to note at least 3 new English vocabulary words. Next they bring them to school and the class makes a list of all words that were noted. The class sees if all words related to the topic of Christmas. For instance, "snow" does due to the time of year (in typical Western celebrations), however "art" (from slide 2) is not necessarily always part of the main topic. The video can be watched again to see if any word was missed from the teacher's target list. Also, the show can be re-watched and paused slide-by-slide with the words being identified within the photo. "Snow" may be easy, though "wreath" and "stocking"  may not be so obvious for new students. After the word/object identification a worksheet can be passed out with picture to word matching. This can be a race, either individual or group, with the first 3 finished to be awarded a prize.

    Performance Indicator - ESL.I.5-8.1.1.15:
    Students apply self-monitoring and self-correcting strategies for accurate language production
    and oral and written presentation, using established criteria for effective presentation of
    information.

    May Include - ESL.I.5-8.1.1.15.MI:
    Strategies such as referring to illustrations, asking questions, starting over, rephrasing, and
    exploring alternative ways of saying things (see full list here).

After the lesson, the teacher could give an overview of the Animoto online program and have the students choose their topic for which to create a presentation. They could use their own photos that they find or have already on their computer. There are also many stock photos available on Animoto to be used. The Christmas vocabulary lesson's presentation would serve as a basis.

To be included:

1. a theme, meaning a presented topic and presentation graphical theme
2. a title
3. at least 5 pictures
4. a caption with each picture
5. all in English
6. music

The above mentioned performance indicator further applied in that now students also produce their own information and possible also explore alternative ways of saying things. Additionally, as I had created a TedEd lesson on creating TedEd lessons, that very platform could be used to explain how to use Animoto as well. Thus, instead of a class overview of Animoto, the TedEd lesson could serve the same purpose and allow for more class-based activity time.

TedEd Lesson

I have gone meta by accident.

My first lesson that I have designed on TedEd, see here, is not so much about language learning as it is about learning about a teaching tool. However, since the tool, TedEd, is in English, teachers who plan to teach the language, but for whom English is not a native language, this lesson could very well apply. The lesson structure is a simple flipped classroom structure. Students watch a video, then answer questions. Then, in class the activity will be to create their own TedEd lesson.

The target here are definitely advanced and proficient speakers of English as an L2. They are also planning to be English teachers themselves, thus this is a pretty field specific lesson, though anyone who will go on to convey information in an organized and presentable way could make use of it.

Target Students

• High intermediate/advanced students aiming to be teachers (ESL or other).

Objectives

• Students will have a basic understanding of TedEd's lesson building tool.
• Students will be able to engage in "languaging" (as defined by Swain) about their L2 and field.

Procedure

• Outside of class: students receive link to TedEd lesson and go through with it. This includes a 3-minute video, a quick glancing over already made lessons on TedEd, a readings of 2 reviews, then 2 multiple choice questions, and two discussion questions with brief answers.
• In class: class briefly goes over the two multiple-choice question. Students share their discussion questions with the class. Students create their own TedEd lesson, which includes at least what the lesson they took does. Some innovation is encouraged.

This is the basic first day of class. In later classes, I would try and guide it along so that the students end up designing lessons for their own classmates, which are then taken in class and assessed. Once again, to encourage Swain's notion of languaging. A pool of resource links should be available for the students to draw from, such as on Diigo, in the students creation of their own lesson, be it ESL or another topic.

Flipping a Classroom

The idea of "flipping" as classroom - that is conducting instruction outside of the class and follow up work in class - is a very interesting idea that seems to, quite literally, turn traditional teaching upside down. The main point that's presented in this article by John Graney is that flipping allows for much better use of classroom time. Instruction does not require much teacher-student or student-student interaction, the students simply listen and take notes and with today's abundant technology the students can easily do that outside of the classroom. Homework, however, can be greatly benefited with class time and the accompanying possibilities for collaboration. It is here, in assessing their intake of the presented material that students could most use the guidance of a teacher or help from peers, thus having them do this in the classroom is, in effect, maximizing classroom time. As well as maximizing the teachers' work time - questions, comments and help after the presentation of the materials can be be done right then and there in the classroom. Helaine Marshall states, "with lesson presentation taking place outside of class, time in class consists of the instructor observing students to ensure on-task attention and equal participation of all learners; assessing how well each student is doing based on contributions and questions; dealing with confusion or misconceptions about material in the videos, and encouraging higher level thinking" in this article.

Classroom restructuring

I think that this is a fascinating re-imagining of the role of the classroom. By having classroom time be activity time, it puts the most interesting things in the classroom and on a regular basis not just as an exception. Of course, class time will only be interesting and students will only be able to participate if they've completed the "instructional videos" (referring to above graphic) or, in other words, the presentation on the lesson. By having the students come in ready into the class they can be more focused and they can know, more or less, what to expect. I have not tried this method yet, but the theory looks way too good to pass up. Bored, unfocused and disinterested students are among a teacher's least favorite things. Other negative classroom things seem to radiate out from that: from poor performance to bad behavior. Thus reformatting the class to minimize these can only be a good idea.

A criticism of this method that comes up is that teachers apparently abandon their central role in the classroom here. However, I think that this is far from true. What is true is that students are empowered a lot more, though not at the expense of the teacher who still selects class materials and assignments, carries out assessment and so on. The teacher may not stand in the front of the class as much, yet still the whole class is still led by the teacher. To use an analogy, the traditional teacher is more like a marching band leader, central and unmistakable, while the flipped classroom teacher is someone along the lines of a team coach and referee bound into one, he or she sets the rules and overall strategy while the players/students actually carry it out.

I look forward to trying this method on when I go on to teach, though it will require some convincing. Many traditionally taught parents might be hesitant to embrace this method, this its presentation might have to be tweaked - e.g. "homework is to watch the video and in class we'll discuss it and have an activity and quiz." When grades and morale improve, parents should be accepting of it in a big way.